


Behind the Door

by dedkake



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Mockingjay Spoilers, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 12:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5247962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedkake/pseuds/dedkake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta has a particularly bad nightmare. His six-year-old daughter finds him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind the Door

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted over on my LJ back in January 2011](http://dedkake.livejournal.com/7191.html). Bringing it back just because I can. And because Mockingjay feelings. Sob.

She wakes when the door down the hall slams closed. She knows it’s her father; if her mother had slammed the door, there would have been screaming, too. At this point, she would normally hear her father’s uneven footsteps on the stairs as he goes to make some fresh bread for their lunches or sketch his dreams in the kitchen, but this time she hears nothing.

Quickly making sure that her little brother is still asleep in the bed next to hers, she peeks out her door. Her father is sitting in front of his door with his knees drawn up to his face and his hands buried in his hair. Even in the dim light of the hall, she can see the whiteness of his knuckles, the way his shoulders shake. She’s seen him this way before, but she knows she wasn’t supposed to see it because it always disappears behind a closed door. Not this time.

“Daddy?” she calls quietly down the hall.

When he doesn’t move, doesn’t seem to hear her at all, she decides to go to him. She’s scared; scared because she doesn’t know how he acts when he’s like this, only knows that her parents want to hide it from her. His silence is frightening and she feels very, very alone. But as she moves quietly down the hall, she finds that her father is not silent at all. His breathing is loud and ragged through his nose and clenched teeth.

“Daddy?” she asks again, this time standing right in front of him. He still doesn’t respond.

Now she can feel tears in her eyes. Her dad always answers her, smiles at her, talks to her, but he’s not even looking at her now. She should get her mother, she knows she should. Her mom can always fix him, he says so, and she’s seen it before. But what will happen if she raises her voice or if she tries to open the door behind her father? She’s alone here; just her and her father.

Sniffing back her tears, she reaches forward to pull his arm away from his head. She needs to see his face, to make him see hers. His reaction is immediate. His hands whip down to the floor at his sides and he pushes himself flat up against the door, as far away as he could be. She can see his eyes now, as they stare up at her. Her father looks panicked and hurt and she can see that, in this moment, he does not know her.

She’s crying again, waiting for him to say something, to do something, to recognize her, but nothing happens. “Daddy,” she says again, softer this time, trying to sound strong through her tears, like her mother does.

This time, she can see something flicker in his eyes, hear his sharp intake of breath, but he doesn’t move. After an impossible amount of time, she hears him whisper, “You’re my daughter.”

For a moment, she is relieved, happier than she can ever remember being at that phrase. Then she sees that the panic in her father’s eyes isn’t disappearing, it’s getting worse. He hadn’t been telling her she was his daughter, he had been asking. Her tears come back, harder than before, and she bites back the hiccups that comes with them this time.

She has to do something quickly, she knows it, but she’s frozen with grief and confusion. She’s heard her father ask questions like this before, softly to her mother, questions that have such simple, obvious answers. What is it her mother does then, what does she say? Staring down into her father’s terrified, terrifying face, she remembers. She closes her eyes for a moment and bites her cheek, hoping she’s right, hoping she can make him remember.

Reaching forward, she puts her hand on his face and tries to ignore the way he flinches at the contact. “Real,” she answers, even though she doesn’t know what it means, why her father needs to hear it.

There are a few, tense, perfectly silent moments, and then her father is saying her name, over and over, pulling her down into a tight hug. She cries with relief, burying her face and her tears in his neck, holding onto him as tightly as she can. She can feel him crying as well, and holds onto him more tightly.

Silently, she wishes she had stayed in her room, waited longer to hear her father go downstairs. She knows now why her parents kept this behind a door, and she wishes it was still there. She does not want her father to leave like that again, wishes that she didn’t know it ever happened. Slowly, she realizes that her father is no longer saying her name, but apologizing softly, repeatedly, his arms shaking with both of their tears. She doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for, but feels like she’s beginning to understand.

“I love you, Daddy,” she says, not letting go of him, afraid he’ll forget.

Her father squeezes her gently in the hug. “I love you, too,” he says softly, kissing her forehead. “Always.”


End file.
